Chatted with a retired account exec from Ogilvy who changed how I look at billable hours

Was grabbing coffee at a shop near my office last Tuesday and this older guy saw my agency mug. Turns out he ran accounts at Ogilvy for 30 years. He said the smartest thing they ever did was cap billable hours at 35 per week per person, even if clients paid for 40. Said the extra 5 hours were for thinking, not doing. Never crossed my mind to build slack into the rate like that. Has anyone else tried something similar or do you just bill every minute?

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1 Comment

felix47810d ago

Did you catch that article in Adweek last month about unbundled thinking time? They talked about how agencies that force that white space into their schedules actually get better creative work out of people. I'd rather have a team that's paid to strategize than one that's just trying to hit some arbitrary hour target.